Orange County Choppers

Episode 5: Senior Vs Junior – Junior builds a bike.

Last night’s American Chopper finally shows us Junior building a new bike, and also getting his first paying customer: Geico. The Geico bike and the newest web theme bike called ‘Anti-Venom” were both debuted at Sturgis last month( see: Paul Jr at Sturgis), so there no surprises there, but I, for one, am very happy for all the time that was spent on the actual builds.

It was even nice to see the silly ramp being built, that OCC made to launch an effigy of Junior across the creek. Paul Sr. is really taking this father-son thing too far, but he claims it’s all in good fun.

Meanwhile Paul Jr. Designs has apparently snagged the painting talents of Nub back. I’m still wondering what happened to the first painter on American Chopper, Justin. His business is still in Newburgh, and I know that he filed a lawsuit against Discovery and OCC for using his artwork without giving him compensation on merchandise. What I’m hearing is that he was never paid for any of the theme bikes he did for them, doing them simply for the publicity. Which means OCC got the paint job for free but then turned around and charged the client for it. What a sweet deal for them.  How many other parts on those bikes were obtained the same way?

And I’m sure JR is doing the same thing; getting his equipment for free and probably a good portion of his parts. Wonder if he’s paying Nub or not?  Heck; is he even paying Vinnie, or is this just free publicity for V-Force customs? Imagine if we could run our business by creating products with donated parts?

As we move forward I’m hoping that future bikes come out better that the new Geico bike. A tail? Are you serious?

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American Chopper: Senior vs Junior Episode 4

Last night’s American Chopper took quite a serious note as a worker fell to his death while doing repairs on Paul Jrs new building. This story was all over the internet when it happened, and I’m going to leave the man’s name out of my post, since TLC left it out of the show. I did find it interesting that most news stories at the time reported that the worker was working on an OCC building, when it fact it was Paul Jr Designs new building.

Paul Sr. again tried to reach out to one of his sons; this time Paulie, to no avail. I think if these two guys could get their legal problems settled, they might have chance at a father and son relationship although, apparently Sr is not on speaking terms with any of his children. Must be them, right?

The Meteorite Men Bike

Orange County Choppers built a bike last night for the Science Channel’s Meteorite Men show. Since TLC and the Science Channel are all part of the Discovery network, I’m sure they may have been footing the bill for promotional reasons. Ths bike was certainly not a chopper but at least that actually showed a good deal of the fabrication and final assembly on this bike.

Meanwhile, Paul Jr still continues to not build a bike, as he apparently can’t get electric in his building fast enough to get started. And we find out that Mikey Teutel has been driving without insurance. Do you think the Montgomery police will track him down and issue a citation after watching last night’s show?

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American Chopper: Senior vs Junior – Paul Jr. Starts a bike

You may recall that in my last post on the whole OCC saga Episode Two Senior vs Junior, I said that a real businessman wouldn’t wait for clients, he would just start building bikes. At the end of last night’s Episode, Paulie announces to the rest of the Paul Jr. designs crew that they are going to build a shop bike. As you might have guessed it would become one of the two bikes that were unveiled at Sturgis.

Meanwhile Orange County Choppers builds a bike for Esab welders and I noticed that Paul Jr. is using Lincoln welders when I visited his online clothing store, which is all his website currently is. OK both bikes have been revealed, why wouldn’t you immediately put photos of the builds on your website? I don’t know, probably some deal with TLC.

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Episode Two Senior vs Junior

I wrote about this episode on my other blog  Custom Harleys  by mistake. No sense taking it down there so I’m just going to put a copy here also:

As we all know Paul Jr managed to snag a bike deal with Geico and unveiled not one but two bikes at Sturgis 2 weeks ago. See the story on my Choppers blog: http://www.chopperssite.com/index.php/orange-county-choppers/paul-jr-to-be-at-sturgis

Pics of the bikes can be found here: http://katesdon.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/paul-jr-designs/

I like the bikes. I understand why Paulie would want to do another spider bike, since that’s his trademark and Paul Sr. owns all of the previous bikes. And the Geico bike is sleek and not “cartoonish” at all.

Last night’s American Chopper episode focused on Junior’s failed attempts to get a client for Paul Jr Designs, and his filling his new shop with lots of idle equipment. Is it just me or have these first two episodes been edited in such a way to make Jr look like a failure? Numerous scenes have been Paul Sr. discussing how much of a failure Paulie is since he’s left the shop.

Obviously he did manage to snag one client at least that we know of but I question whether TLC is deliberately trying to slant the show in Sr’s favor, especially since OCC is the show’s bread and butter or if Paulie really does have no clue what he’s doing business-wise.

One thing I will say is this: instead of looking for clients to contract a build for, a real business man would have been building bikes anyway and trying to sell them for a profit while he looked for contract jobs. Is this exactly what senior means when he says Paulie wants everything handed to him: a contract to build bike before he gets his hands dirty. Image if you tried to open a shop that way. “Well we haven’t built any bikes yet, but would you like to order one?” I think you’d fail.

And while I believe it’s bit of stretch for Paul Sr. to say Paulie’s trying to ride on OCC’s coattails, it is obvious that the shop is not hurting with out him there. Kind of makes you wonder if that’s why Sr. brought in Jason Pohl when he did; so he would have good designer on staff when he finally had to fire Paulie?

I just wish this new version of the show was more about building bikes and less about the family issues.

American Chopper:Senior vs Junior

Well last night OCC was back on the air in TLCs new version of American Chopper.  What did you think?  I notice we are spending less and less time on the bike builds as far as camera time and quite frankly as interesting as the whole father and son thing is, I really think if they don’t show more of the builds the show is doomed to be yanked again.

I have been scouring the net trying to find a pic of the bike Paul Jr was to unveil in Sturgis on the 11th, but am coming up empty. Send me a link if you find a shot of it please!

Lot’s of questions remain after watching last night’s episode.

What happened to the boutique?

Mikey in or out?

What about V-force and Cody?

How much of this is staged by TLC?

 Senior looks surprised that Paulie’s opening a new shop yet there’s a camera in his face for a show that was supposed to have been canceled. Tell me that scene wasn’t staged?

Please post comments about last nights American Chopper show. Moderation will be light, so tell it like you see it.